Juho Pohjalainen's Blog: Pankarp - Posts Tagged "plot-triggers"
Somebody's death kicks off the story. Again.
You may not realize it - it's only cropped up in one of my published stories out of three - but I have a big tendency of opening my books with someone important having just died. This would be the fifth time, at least, that I remember on top of my head.
It's an easy way to begin. The story leaps down running, the stakes are set high, and anyone can relate to the surviving protagonist even if you know nothing of them at this stage - just watching them run for their lives will have you invested.
At the same time, not every story needs to open at such high tension. Maybe this time around I could take my time, have a chapter or two to establish the characters, including the one about to die, so that you might learn to care about them in a safe enviroment before dropping the bomb?
To be honest, I struggle coming up with a good other place to begin, or how to write it down. But that's just all the more reason to go for it: all the worthwhile things to do are hard, and it'll teach me a new lesson or two on the way.
It's an easy way to begin. The story leaps down running, the stakes are set high, and anyone can relate to the surviving protagonist even if you know nothing of them at this stage - just watching them run for their lives will have you invested.
At the same time, not every story needs to open at such high tension. Maybe this time around I could take my time, have a chapter or two to establish the characters, including the one about to die, so that you might learn to care about them in a safe enviroment before dropping the bomb?
To be honest, I struggle coming up with a good other place to begin, or how to write it down. But that's just all the more reason to go for it: all the worthwhile things to do are hard, and it'll teach me a new lesson or two on the way.
Pankarp
Pages fallen out of Straggler's journal, and others.
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